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Has anyone heard of Chromebooks being used as a viable method of filtering/monitoring Internet usage amongst groups of users?

trimthicket wrote:Has anyone heard of Chromebooks being used as a viable method of filtering/monitoring Internet usage amongst groups of users?

I haven't. But I don't think I have ever met anyone who owns a chromebook.

A Chromebook is a laptop that uses a lot of cloud storage. Some have no hard drive. You can use browser add ones to limit access if you choose. There are several blacklist extensions you can add to Chrome. I have not found a whitelist option for Chrome, but have not looked for one the past 6 months. Maybe something is out there.

trimthicket wrote:Has anyone heard of Chromebooks being used as a viable method of filtering/monitoring Internet usage amongst groups of users?

I would not consider them ideal for this.

Josh wrote:

trimthicket wrote:Has anyone heard of Chromebooks being used as a viable method of filtering/monitoring Internet usage amongst groups of users?

I would not consider them ideal for this.

Although you could set up a proxy server under their flavor of Linux to do just that, just about any desktop would be better, even a used cheep.

J.M.

With their popularity within school systems, I thought they would be great for the task. But maybe that's just for a deployment of hundreds instead of 10 to 20.

Some folks I know are currently using email only. They work with a company out of Lancaster that registers a domain, runs an email server for them, and provides them with a pre-configured router that only allows email through. Providing a router seems silly since what's to stop someone from just plugging right into the modem?

I feel this is overkill for what they're trying to accomplish. For $100, I had hoped a Chromebook could be configured with all the controls in place. Then at most maybe pay a small price for ad free email.

trimthicket wrote:With their popularity within school systems, I thought they would be great for the task. But maybe that's just for a deployment of hundreds instead of 10 to 20.

Some folks I know are currently using email only. They work with a company out of Lancaster that registers a domain, runs an email server for them, and provides them with a pre-configured router that only allows email through. Providing a router seems silly since what's to stop someone from just plugging right into the modem?

I feel this is overkill for what they're trying to accomplish. For $100, I had hoped a Chromebook could be configured with all the controls in place. Then at most maybe pay a small price for ad free email.

Like Robert said, Chromebooks are linux computers. Probably there would be a way of setting up the firewall rules to do that. Or you could just buy a cheap Windows laptop and install Linux and get someone to set it up for you.

trimthicket wrote:With their popularity within school systems, I thought they would be great for the task. But maybe that's just for a deployment of hundreds instead of 10 to 20.

Some folks I know are currently using email only. They work with a company out of Lancaster that registers a domain, runs an email server for them, and provides them with a pre-configured router that only allows email through. Providing a router seems silly since what's to stop someone from just plugging right into the modem?

I feel this is overkill for what they're trying to accomplish. For $100, I had hoped a Chromebook could be configured with all the controls in place. Then at most maybe pay a small price for ad free email.

Schools have servers that run firewalls and filters. The Chromebooks just access the internet through the server. They do little filtering themselves.

Robert wrote:

trimthicket wrote:With their popularity within school systems, I thought they would be great for the task. But maybe that's just for a deployment of hundreds instead of 10 to 20.

Some folks I know are currently using email only. They work with a company out of Lancaster that registers a domain, runs an email server for them, and provides them with a pre-configured router that only allows email through. Providing a router seems silly since what's to stop someone from just plugging right into the modem?

I feel this is overkill for what they're trying to accomplish. For $100, I had hoped a Chromebook could be configured with all the controls in place. Then at most maybe pay a small price for ad free email.

Schools have servers that run firewalls and filters. The Chromebooks just access the internet through the server. They do little filtering themselves.

Installing OpenDNS on the router would work, wouldn't it? You could use the whitelist option to only include the sites you needed for updates and email.

Of course, there would still be the issue of being able to just plug the internet directly into the computer.

By the way if I remember correctly, EmyPeople does install software on your computer that sets your proxy settings and locks them, so that you can't just bypass it. I didn't think it was a regular router though. I think they use the Dynamite protector system.

lesterb wrote:Installing OpenDNS on the router would work, wouldn't it? You could use the whitelist option to only include the sites you needed for updates and email.

Some routers actually come with some blacklist/whitelist abilities. Knowing how to access and set it up is a whole other ballgame.

Anoher tool would be setting up a whitelist DNS list, say at, mennonet.com, that could be used any who wanted it. I suspect there are some already out there, so no need to duplicate things.